Beneath the World of Money: Working-Class Issues in Orwell

master's thesis

• Author: David Sambunjak
• Mentor: Martina Domines Veliki (mentor)
• Committee member: Sven Cvek (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Borislav Knežević (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2021-09-27, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

This thesis analyzes three early works of George Orwell – Down and Out in Paris and London, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, and The Road to Wigan Pier. The main focus of the thesis is the working-class issues that Orwell presented and introduced. The insight into poverty studies is given before the analysis of the working-class personalities and living conditions as seen in the novels. Birte Christ’s methodology and theory are mostly mentioned due to their detailed and applicable nature. Apart from that methodology, using figurations of poverty, the novels are interpreted through different aspects. These aspects are different types of configurations: Lifeworlds, textual form, and styles and agencies of articulation. Issues such as cross-class representation, non-systemic explanations, and class-discovery text are explained and applied to the texts. All three novels have their unique styles, for example, Down and Out in Paris and London is showing the author experience poverty almost first-hand, Keep the Aspidistra Flying’s main narrator is the author’s alter-ego who struggles with accepting the fact that money drives everything important in life, and The Road to Wigan Pier is given in two parts: part one is very similar to Down and Out as the author travels so he could spend time with the working classes and note facts about their lives. However, in The Road to Wigan Pier, the author is not experiencing poverty first-hand but rather describing what he sees. Many of the characters mentioned in the novels are analyzed in the thesis, most of them being from Down and Out as this novel contains much more examples of working-class people than the other two. Wigan Pier is mostly about the working conditions of the working class and Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a fictional story about a man who contemplates the issues of money and poverty. That is why the latter provides mostly the main character's insights on the money problem and different attitudes towards the working class.

• Keywords: Orwell’s Early Novels; Poverty in Literature; Figurations of Poverty; Cross-Class Representation; Attitudes towards the Working Class
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:615541
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation; Course: Literature and Culture; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2021-10-03 11:32:24